Renovations on the Sunset Coffee Building, built in 1910, are slated to begin in April and will cost an estimated $8 million. The building is expected to reopen with space for kayak, canoe and bike rentals, offices and private space for rent, inside and on the rooftop terrace, in mid-2014.

Renovations on the Sunset Coffee Building, built in 1910, are slated to begin in April and will cost an estimated $8 million. The building is expected to reopen with space for kayak, canoe and bike rentals,

A rendering shows the look that's ahead for the old Sunset Coffee Building, which was built in 1910 but had been left vacant for decades.

A rendering shows the look that's ahead for the old Sunset Coffee Building, which was built in 1910 but had been left vacant for decades.

Photo: Lake Flato Architects, Inc.

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Renovations on the Sunset Coffee Building, built in 1910, are slated to begin in April and will cost an estimated $8 million. The building is expected to reopen with space for kayak, canoe and bike rentals, offices and private space for rent, inside and on the rooftop terrace, in mid-2014.

Renovations on the Sunset Coffee Building, built in 1910, are slated to begin in April and will cost an estimated $8 million. The building is expected to reopen with space for kayak, canoe and bike rentals,

More graffiti can be seen in this side view of the building, once home to Sunset Coffee.

More graffiti can be seen in this side view of the building, once home to Sunset Coffee.

Photo: Sharón Steinmann, Chronicle

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The Buffalo Bayou Partnership is remodeling the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing.

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership is remodeling the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing.

Photo: Sharon Steinmann, Houston Chronicle

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The Buffalo Bayou Partnership plans to begin a major remodeling and refocusing of the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing. Photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007. ( Sharon Steinmann / Chronicle )

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership plans to begin a major remodeling and refocusing of the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing. Photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007. (

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership plans to begin a major remodeling and refocusing of the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing. Photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007. ( Sharon Steinmann / Chronicle )

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership plans to begin a major remodeling and refocusing of the old International Coffee Company Building (Sunset Coffee) at Allen's Landing. Photographed on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007. (

The Sunset Coffee Building at Allen's Landing is at the spot where brothers Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen established Houston in 1836.

The Sunset Coffee Building at Allen's Landing is at the spot where brothers Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen established Houston in 1836.

Photo: Sharon Steinmann, Staff

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Plan to renovate city's 'front door' to begin in April

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The century-old Sunset Coffee Building, looming in disrepair over Allen's Landing at the north end of downtown, will become Houston's "front door" with an $8 million public-private renovation set to begin in April.

The three-story brick structure is boarded up, marked with graffiti, and has shrubs growing out of some second-floor windows.

Come mid-2014, however, the facility will house kayak, canoe and bike rentals on the first floor, office space on the second floor, private event space on the third floor, a rooftop terrace, and will be flanked by outdoor plazas and walkways connecting to Commerce Street.

Most of the money comes from private donations to the nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership. The fundraising also was boosted by a $500,000 federal grant and finished off with a $2.4 million infusion from Houston First, the board that runs the city's convention and arts facilities.

The building sits at the confluence of Buffalo and White Oak bayous, where the Allen brothers landed in 1836 to found Houston. Mayor Annise Parker said just as the Allens had a dream of what the city could become, modern visionaries also had a plan for one of the city's oldest industrial landmarks.

"I want you to think where we started, and I want everybody here to think where we're going to end up," Parker said.

"And what not just the building behind us is going to look like when this grassy area is full of people and kayaks for rent and people picnicking, but also the runners, the joggers, the bikers, as they come in on the trails, as people fill up the waterway down here in their boats, as this becomes more of a place for festivals and events," the mayor said. "This is Houston's heartline, but it could become our front door."

Parker said the renovation will complement an ongoing $55 million overhaul of Buffalo Bayou Park from downtown to Shepherd, as well as an expansion of the city's trail system, approved by voters last fall.

Childhood memories

Houstonian Barbara Kirkland Chiles sat beaming in the front row as officials unveiled a rendering of the renovated building. Chiles' grandfather, A.S. Cleveland, was one of the Cleveland brothers who owned a wholesale grocery on Commerce Street that the Coffee Building was built to serve. She recalled visiting him there as a girl more than 80 years ago.

"I think it's absolutely fantastic," Chiles said of the project. "I used to come down and run up the stairs and go up in his office. It smelled like coffee. That's my earliest remembrance of it."

Built in 1910, the building later found itself the focus of the city's counterculture movement as the Love Street Light Circus, showcasing mostly local psychedelic rockers from 1967 to 1970.

Defying skeptics

Susan Keeton, chairman emeritus of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, said it has been a long road, with some skepticism from the nonprofit's board members, since the partnership first bought the building in 1997, with the dream of making it a focal point of recreation on the bayou. Renovations had been slated to start in 2008, but fundraising lagged amid the national recession.

"It is our Plymouth Rock, and the wonderful thing about it is that, unlike Plymouth Rock - which now is sort of small and forlorn, I've seen it off of Cape Cod - this, particularly when the Coffee Building gets renovated, is not going to be a lonely place," Keeton said. "A day like today, this beautiful slope ought to just attract people, too many, almost."